Fitness & Wellness

Guilt Free Snacks

Guilt Free Snacks

If you’re trying to lose weight, you know the hardest part is that time of day when you normally reach for a bag of chips, donut or candy bar. It can be the time between breakfast and lunch, lunch and dinner or about an hour or two after dinner. You don’t have to skip your favorite time to eat. In fact, it’s healthy if you choose guilt free snacks. These are snacks that are relatively low in calories, but super charged with nutrients.

Keep snacking simple.

You can create gourmet healthy snacks, but often the best tasting snacks are simple. Buy some tree nuts, seeds and dried fruit and package up individual serving bags of your home made trail mix. You can even add a couple of semi-sweet dark chocolate bits to each serving bag. It’s a healthy combination that will keep you full, plus provide benefits.

Prepare veggies and fruit the minute you get home from the store.

Whether you’ve purchased celery, red pepper, cantaloupe, grapes or any other fruit except apples or veggie you can snack on or dip, wash it and prepare it for eating. Section grapefruit and oranges and have them ready in a bowl to snack on when you need a bit to eat. Make a healthy dip from chickpeas or Greek yogurt for vegetables. You’ll find that if they’re ready to serve, you’ll make them your snack, rather than a higher empty calorie cookie or a bag of chips. As you come near the end of the week, if there’s fruit left, serve it for dessert and use the veggies left over for cooking.

Apples and cheese or peanut butter make a guilt free healthy snack.

Slicing up an apple and topping it with a bit of nut butter or cheese is an excellent snack. You can use any type of nut butter, but peanut butter, especially the chunky kind, has proven to be the most popular. Make sure you choose peanut butter that has just one ingredient—peanuts. There shouldn’t be any additives. You’ll have to stir it before you use it, as it separates, but it’s worth the effort. Eating a thin slice of cheese with a section of apple is also filling and delicious. Both options provide protein, fiber and healthy fat to keep you full longer.

  • Combine a bit of honey with peanut butter and then add wheat germ until you can roll it in a ball. Coat the ball with wheat germ and have these ready for snacks in your refrigerator. You can also add freshly ground flaxseed, chia seeds, dried fruit or oats for more flavor.
  • Plain Greek yogurt with chopped frozen black cherries and very coarsely chopped walnuts added make a delicious snack. Layer the ingredients in a small half pint mason jar with a lid and store in the refrigerator for snacking later.
  • Make sweet potato chips in your oven and lightly salt them. They’re an excellent alternative for people who love the crunch and slight saltiness of potato chips.
  • The simplest snack of all is popcorn. You can even make popcorn in the microwave without the cost and extra oil of prepackaged microwave popcorn. Put a fourth cup of popcorn kernels in a brown paper lunch bag, fold the top of the bag several times to seal and pop it the microwave for about two minutes.

For more information, contact us today at BioFit Performance


Adopt A Healthy Lifestyle This Year

Adopt A Healthy Lifestyle This Year

At BioFit Performance in Oviedo, FL, we believe you should thrive and you can do that by making changes and adopting a healthy lifestyle. The recent events and pandemic have shown us how important keeping fit and staying healthy can be. While there were exceptions, people were the fittest had the best chance of recovery, but getting and staying fit is more than just being able to fight a virus. It’s being able to live life to its fullest.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Every morning when you wake up, you can make a decision to live healthier or not. It’s that simple. You can’t change some things, such as genetics or past illnesses, but you can help prevent future problems and life altering conditions. Getting fit starts with your mindset. You should realize how much you deserve to feel good physically and good about yourself. Do you need to eat healthier? Get more exercise and in better shape? Shed a few pounds or live pain free? It’s your decision.

You can start by making small changes.

Do you hop in a car to go to a friend’s house just down the street? If so, change that habit and walk there. It’s one way to get more exercise. Is your grocery store a few blocks away? Ride a bike with baskets or get a personal cart to carry groceries and walk. Take the stairs and not the elevator. Devote just ten minutes to exercising a few times a day. Skip that candy bar and grab an apple instead. These small changes all add up to a big improvement in your fitness level.

One of the biggest causes of preventable deaths is obesity.

Obesity occurs not because of how much people eat, but what they eat. Products high in processed flour and sugar are often a huge part of many American’s diets. Start by focusing on giving up products that have added sugar. It’s the hardest thing to do, but something that will make a huge difference in your life. Substitute fresh fruit when you have a craving for sugar. Plan healthy snacks. You’ll be surprised at how sweet it is if you’ve given up products with added sugar. Fried foods, snack foods and foods with processed flour should be on your list to go next.

  • We can help you with a program of healthy eating. Our nutritional consultant can guide you on a program that will make eating healthier easier to do and actually enjoyable.
  • You don’t have to be an athlete to want to feel your best, but we do help athletes achieve their best, too. No matter what shape you’re in today, we can help you start on a path to achieve your goals of being fitter, stronger and healthier.
  • A healthier lifestyle involves more than just exercise and diet. It means getting adequate hydration, plenty of sleep and more. You can get a free consultation or try our jump-start to help you get started to a healthier way of living.
  • We provide recovery systems, an infra red sauna, contrast bath therapy and stretch therapy to help you mend, whether it’s from a workout or a long day at work.

For more information, contact us today at BioFit Performance


Keep Moving When Staying Home

Keep Moving When Staying Home

I’m always pleased when a new client comes into Biofit Performance in Oviedo, FL, especially when they tell us they are trying to find a way to keep moving, since they’re now staying home, either working from home or retired. While you don’t need a formal exercise program to keep moving, it helps get you into a routine and gets you out of the house. Too often people tell that after a few weeks of being home bound, they found that their desire to be active started to dwindle and inactivity is one of the causes of preventable deaths. Obesity is still number one, but that is also tied to being inactive.

Moving more is probably more important than working out.

If you workout every day for an hour and then sit in the same position at your desk the rest of the day, you aren’t doing yourself any favors. Studies show that people who sit the longest have increased risk for diabetes and heart disease. Sitting longer than an hour can wipe out many of the benefits of working out. According to one study, if you sit for longer than six hours straight, you literally wiped out any benefits of a regular workout. Take a five-minute break every hour to walk or move. Do a few jumping jacks or lunges.

How much do you sit when you’re at home?

One study found that sitting longer than three hours a day may be way too much time sitting at one time. Another study from REGARD—Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke—identified that the average person actually sits more than previously thought. The study was aimed at finding why there were more strokes in people of color in the southern US than there were in their Caucasian counterparts. They tracked almost 8,000 people of all races for four years and found that during the 16 waking hours, the subjects averaged 12.3 hours of sedentary behavior, which is 2.3 hours more than previously thought. Track your movement and you’ll probably find something similar.

Even if you don’t work at a desk at home, just watching TV in the evening can be a hazard.

The REGARD study showed that the longer the subjects sat, the more their potential for death increased. Those who sat 13 hours a day had twice the risk of death compared to those who sat 11 hours every day. However, if the subject sat 13 hours, but got up every 30 minutes and moved, then the potential for death lowered by 55%. Sitting longer than 90 minutes doubled the risk of death. If you’re going to watch TV or be at the computer for a while, set a timer for a half hour and get up and move around.

  • Travelers and truck drivers are subject to the same problem as those who stay at home. Stopping every 30-50 minutes isn’t an option for them, so when they do stop, a brisk 15 minute workout is suggested for good health.
  • Do you have a house with a set of stairs? Make them your workout. Every 30-50 minutes, run up and down them and challenge yourself to increase the number of up and down laps.
  • If you want to boost your health and ensure you’ll be moving more frequently, split your workout into three to five ten minute sessions. Several shorter sessions provide the same benefits as one long one.
  • As you age, staying active is even more important. Muscles waste away faster and that affects all aspects of your life and health, including bone density. Add walking to your daily schedule and have a workout plan that includes all types of fitness. We offer a free consultation.

For more information, contact us today at BioFit Performance


Working Out Can Improve Self-Esteem

Working Out Can Improve Self-Esteem

If you’ve ever felt blah after a whole day at the computer, you’re not alone. Just sitting does nothing to improve your mood. It can cause stress that you don’t burn off by moving around and you never get that high that you get after a tough workout. Not only does exercise help improve your mood, working out can improve self-esteem. One study showed that people have an improved self-image as soon as they start a program of exercise, long before they see any changes in their body.

You’ll feel stronger when you workout.

There’s something empowering about feeling strong. We’ve had women in business come to the gym and workout hard, including some grueling strength-training. Many of these women work in male dominated careers, and they attribute their devotion to exercise is that it gives them a feeling of strength. Of course, it does give them physical strength and endurance, plus boosts their cognitive processes, which is another reason people workout.

Your posture improves when you workout, so you look more confident.

There was a study by Rosenthal and Jacobson in 1963 that proved the truth of a self-fulfilling prophecy. What is the self-fulfilling prophecy? It’s the idea that if you tell someone that a person is smart, confident or whatever, that person will be treated that way and ultimately become that way. While it was done with students and focused on IQ, the same thing is true in other areas. Confidence is one of those. When you workout, it improves you posture. That improved posture makes you look more confident. When you look more confident, people react to you as though you are and you ultimately become that way. It’s the reason the saying, “fake it until you make it” rings true.

Looking good helps you feel good about yourself.

When you look in the mirror, if you see a strong toned body whose clothes fit just right, you probably feel good about yourself. How you look directly affects how you feel about yourself. It shouldn’t, but our society is obsessed with appearance. Studies show that working out not only affects self-esteem and confidence, it can help with patients who have mild depression and anxiety. As your body improves, so does your self-esteem.

  • Getting into shape starts with setting goals. Achieving those goals and getting fit is part of the reason people are more confident. Once you achieve any goal, it boosts your confidence and you believe other goals are possible.
  • Several studies show the positive effect of exercise on self-esteem in various age groups. One British study showed it improved self-esteem in 3 to 20 year-olds and other studies showed it helps in middle-aged women, seniors and middle-aged men.
  • The energy and improved cognitive functioning that occurs when you exercise regularly increases your self-esteem. When you can keep up with others, whether mentally or physically or surpass them, it makes you feel good.
  • It’s never too late to start a program of exercise. Even people in their eighties and nineties can benefit. At BioFit, we even offer other services infrared sauna, contrast bath therapy, and recovery services that you use to treat yourself even better.

For more information, contact us today at BioFit Performance


Why Meal Planning Is Important??

Why Meal Planning Is Important??

We provide all types of services at Biofit Performance to help our clients in Oviedo, FL, succeed at weight loss and a healthier lifestyle. We base our program on the four pillars of a healthy and one of those is eating healthy. In order to aid clients and make it simpler, we help educate every client on the basics of planning meals, including offering recipes and portion size. Why? Because meal planning is important if you want the most successful transition to healthy eating and getting fit. It answers the question, “What’s for supper,” with a healthy option that takes minutes to put on the table.

Meal planning isn’t just planning meals.

There are a couple of ways to approach meal planning. The most common way is to plan meals for the week one day, shop the next and prepare the next week’s meals over the weekend or your days off of work. Cooking the food can be done when you’re not already tired from a long day at work. You’ll have all the ingredients on hand, even if you don’t cook ahead, which is often half the battle.

If you spend one day cooking, you can take a break the rest of the week.

A lot of the time spent on healthy meals is the time the food is cooking, whether in an instant pot crock pot or oven. Taking one day for prep means you can cook two or more day’s worth of food at once. Your oven can do double duty, baking two types of meat or meat and vegetables at once. While the main courses are cooking, you can chop and prepare all the vegetables at once. Some will be used for several meals. In fact, by chopping all fresh vegetables and fruit at once, you can have some on hand for quick snacks.

It’s quicker than a drive-through during the week.

If you have all your meals planned and ready to heat, it only takes minutes to warm them. That’s faster than sitting in a drive-through line. It’s also less expensive in many cases. You can triple or double the recipes and freeze some of the meals for later weeks, so you don’t have to prepare as many meals down the road, or they’re ready for those weekends you don’t have the time to cook. Good meal plans use leftovers for other meals, such as baked chicken one night and chicken salad another.

  • Since the food is ready to heat and serve, you won’t be as tempted to munch while you’re cooking and also have the built-in portion control. You’ll seldom have leftovers that simply go bad in the refrigerator.
  • When you do meal planning, you can plan around sales, season fruits and vegetables and coupons. You’ll also save money by having a specific grocery list and not do a lot of impulse shopping.
  • It’s important to always do weekly shopping after you’ve eaten, not before you do. By doing the shopping once a week and after you eat, you’ll be less prone to buy junk food.
  • When you meal plan, you do your body a favor and your budget, too. Leftover vegetables at the end of the week can be used for soups, baked or chopped into salads. You’ll have super low cost soups ready to heat and eat for those chilly days.

For more information, contact us today at BioFit Performance


Does Drinking More Water Help You Lose Weight?

Does Drinking More Water Help You Lose Weight?

You might not realize it, but the simple act of drinking more water can help you lose weight. It’s something you can do that’s simple and is one more tool in your tool box to a healthier lifestyle. While it doesn’t replace healthy eating and exercise, anymore than getting adequate sleep would, it’s part of living a healthier lifestyle. Drinking adequate water is important to your overall health. Long term mild chronic dehydration can cause nausea, muscle cramps and headaches. The older you are, the worse the complications can be. It can cause UTIs and in seniors, may even mimic dementia.

You’ll eat less if you fill up on water first.

Believe it or not, water can be an appetite suppressant. You just drink a glass of water before a meal and you’ll eat less than you otherwise might. Several studies found that people eat less at a meal when they drink a glass of water before eating. The savings is approximately 75 calories according to one study, but just think how that 75 calorie savings can add up over three meals a day, seven days a week. It’s 1575 in a week. When you consider cutting 3500 calories means you lose a pound. That’s almost a pound every two weeks.

Mild dehydration can make you think you’re hungry.

The body sends messages and if you’re attuned with your body, you understand them, but most people aren’t. Sometimes, the body sends the message when you’re thirsty, but it’s often interpreted as hungry. Have you ever felt hungry for something, but wasn’t sure what? All you knew is that something juicy sounded delicious. You may have been thirsty, not hungry. Next time you have a “mysterious craving or hunger,” try drinking a glass of water first.

If you’re trying to eat healthier, you often note everything you eat, but not everything you drink.

If you’re trying to eat healthier, ditch the soft drinks and sugary drinks. In most cases they don’t provide any nutrients and tons of calories. Even fruit juice should be replaced with water. You’re better off eating the whole fruit and getting the fiber. Don’t even think about diet colas. New studies show that drinking diet colas increase your waistline and put on visceral fat—the most unhealthy kind.

  • If you want to boost your metabolism, drink some cold water. Ice cold water increases the calories you burn. The warming of the body after drinking something cold burns extra calories and boosts your metabolism.
  • If you’re barely making it through that last rep at the gym, maybe you need a little hydration. Mild dehydration can cause an energy drop. Because of that, you’ll burn fewer calories.
  • Carry a bottle of water with you and sip it throughout the day. You’ll keep your energy high, while also flushing your system of toxins.
  • You may worry about drinking water if you’re bloated and carrying water weight. The opposite of your fears is true. Drinking more water can actually be diuretic to help you eliminate water weight.

For more information, contact us today at BioFit Performance


Workouts To Build Muscle

Workouts To Build Muscle

Whether you want to get that lean, cut look or simply burn fat tissue and build muscle to get that svelte, healthy appearance, you need workouts to build muscle. It’s more than just strength training. While some strength training can build muscles and some muscle building exercises build strength, it’s all about which part of the muscle tissue is the focus. Strength focuses on the neuromuscular system and functionality. Muscle building focuses on making more new muscle fiber and increasing the fluid within the muscle cells to make them bigger.

You can use a split workout schedule or do a full body workout.

It doesn’t matter what type of workout you choose, using exercises that build muscles helps. For the upper body, using bench presses, rows, dumbbell curls, lateral raises and incline dumbbell presses can be examples of workouts to use. For the lower body, leg presses, seated leg curls, standing calf raises and Romanian deadlifts build muscle tissue. Compound style exercises work several muscle groups at once, making them more efficient at building muscles. Barbell squats are examples of a compound exercise.

Don’t forget the bodyweight exercises that build muscles and increase strength.

Push-ups, pull-ups and hanging leg lifts if you have a pull-up bar, planks, lunges, and squats are just a few of the bodyweight exercises you can do to boost your muscle building. You can modify these workouts by going slower, add pause reps, rest less and adjust the body’s angle and position. When you modify an exercise, it can make it more difficult, as in going from a knee bent push-up to a straight leg push-up or make it work another group of muscles, like putting your hands closer together or further apart in a push up.

Focus on both diet and exercise.

You have to eat a healthy diet and increase specific foods to build muscle tissue, especially if you want lean muscle mass. You have to eat enough to have the nutrients to build muscles, but not eat so many calories that you put on fat. Protein should be a top priority. It should be anywhere from 15 to 33 percent of your caloric daily intake. Greek yogurt, salmon and chicken breasts are examples of animal protein and beans, tofu, lentils, almonds and chickpeas are examples of plant protein. You also need about 20 percent of your calories to come from healthy fat and the rest to come from healthy sources of carbohydrates. You’ll boost your muscle building ability when you eat right.

  • Go easy on the cardio if you’re trying to build muscle tissue. It burns tons of calories, but doesn’t discriminate between fat tissue and tissue as the source. Modify your workout to make it a HIIT workout or kettlebell workout that builds muscle and gives a cardio workout at the same time.
  • Don’t workout too long or too often. If you’ve exercised for 75 minutes, you’ve reached maximum muscle growth time. Doing more can actually sabotage your efforts, just like doing it every day can prevent healing that creates the scars to make your muscles bigger.
  • Don’t forget to get adequate sleep. You need sleep to improve muscle growth. It’s when your body heals the micro tears in the muscles that make the muscles bigger.
  • Our personal trainers will develop a program specifically for your needs. If you’re working out at home, our online advisor can create a program that will help you build muscle tissue, lose weight or achieve any personal goal you have.

For more information, contact us today at BioFit Performance


Are Kettlebells A Cardio Workout?

Are Kettlebells A Cardio Workout?

BioFit Performance in Oviedo, FL, focuses on all aspects of fitness from private and group personal training to a great recovery system. We even offer online consultations for those who can’t make it into the gym. One question that’s asked often is whether kettlebells provide a good cardio workout. Most people already realize that kettlebells are good for building strength and the right workouts can improve flexibility.

Kettlebells are a full body workout that can improve all types of fitness.

Working all parts of the body is as important as addressing all types of fitness. No matter what your fitness goal is, you need all types of exercise. You don’t have to isolate cardio workouts from strength building ones with kettlebells. They provide both at the same time. It’s both a cardio exercise that builds strength and strength training that boosts cardio endurance. A cardio workout increases the heart rate. Kettlebell workouts increase the heart rate as much as any cardio workout.

Kettlebell workouts build your endurance.

Unlike barbell bench presses, you can do kettlebell swings far longer, far faster and for more reps. You can also use heavier kettlebells for swings. That increased workout time means it becomes endurance training. That makes your cardiovascular system work harder. It’s all about pushing your body a little longer to build endurance, which is what cardio does.

You can change your kettlebell workout to a HIIT—high intensity interval training workout.

By doing kettlebell workouts with great intensity, then slowing them down for recovery, volleying between the two, you have a great HIIT workout. HIIT workouts not only build strength fast, they boost the cardiovascular system quickly compared to other cardio workouts. You can use the HIIT technique for any type of workout, including kettlebells, and will get the maximum results. Studies show that HIIT workouts are far better than steady-state workouts for cardio.

  • When you use kettlebells, you get a full body workout. That means you involve more muscles, which causes the body to burn more calories. The more calories you burn, the more fat you’ll lose.
  • Another reason kettlebell workouts are so beneficial is that they mimic everyday movements. That means using them to train will boost your functional fitness, to help prevent injury doing every day activities, like picking up the baby or bending down to tie your shoes.
  • The structure of your kettlebell workout determines whether it’s a good cardio workout that builds strength or one that focuses primarily on strength. A good trainer can even modify a workout to focus on flexibility.
  • Using kettlebells in your training program can add variety and make them more interesting. If you hate running and find riding a stationary bike a bore, consider asking one of our trainers about a kettlebell workout.

For more information, contact us today at BioFit Performance


Do Any Workouts Burn 1000 Calories?

Do Any Workouts Burn 1000 Calories?

There are plenty of articles written about the perfect workouts, ones that you can do in a few minutes and those that burn 1000 calories. Some of those articles are misinformation, while others provide good advice. Let’s focus on whether you can burn 1000 calories in one workout. It is possible, but not for everyone and a little bit fuzzier math than you might imagine. Your weight, build and intensity determines the number of calories you burn.

How intense the workout is makes the difference.

In those 1000 calorie workouts, most are calculated by using calories burned during an intense five-minute session and multiplying it by 12. If you burned 83 calories in five minutes, then in an hour, you’d burn 1000 calories. Nobody can go at peak intensity for very long. HIIT—high intensity interval training workouts are based on volleying between a high intensity level and a recovery level that burns fewer calories. To go at the highest intensity for an hour would be difficult even for the fittest athlete.

Body composition and your gender play a huge role.

Unfortunately, when it comes to burning calories, the average woman doesn’t burn nearly as many as the average man. There’s a reason for that. It’s not that men work harder, it’s that men have more muscle mass naturally. The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn. It’s all about hormones and how your body builds muscle. If a man and woman both worked out for a year doing weight training, the man would have between six and nine more pounds from muscle doing the same exercise and expending the same effort. Less muscle mass, means you’ll burn fewer calories.

Younger people burn more calories than older people do.

Again, hormones play a role in calorie burning when it comes to age. Older people tend to lose their muscle mass and build it slower because of lower amounts of hormones. Not only is it harder for an older person to build muscle mass, they’ll also burn fewer calories. Again, hormones dictate how fast you’ll build muscle mass as you age and older people have less, so they have less muscle mass and burn fewer calories.

  • You can boost your calorie burning by using circuit training, HIIT, and full body workouts like using kettlebells.
  • Both aerobic training and strength training burn tons of calories, but you build muscles with strength training and burn muscle tissue for energy with aerobic training, reducing the amount of calories you’ll burn as you lose the muscle tissue.
  • It’s not all about how much you workout. In fact, weight loss starts in the kitchen with a healthy diet. There’s a saying, “You can’t out-exercise a bad diet.” It’s true. A Big Mac meal with medium drink and fries is 1100 calories.
  • Burning calories and losing weight starts with a healthy diet and regular exercise, but the key is consistency. Stick with a schedule so you develop a habit to get the results you want.

For more information, contact us today at BioFit Performance


Home Exercises To Get THOSE Abs

Home Exercises To Get THOSE Abs

Is your goal to have great looking abs and be Oviedo, FL beach-ready? You can do it at home, without any equipment, just commitment and consistency. It starts with a healthy diet and if you’re overweight, losing those extra pounds. No matter how strong your abdominal muscles are, you won’t get “that look” if it’s hidden by a layer of fat. Most of these exercises use the plank position, a powerful ab strength builder.

You can do it all with one position, a plank.

Start with a traditional bodyweight exercise called a forearm or the more difficult straight arm plank. For the traditional straight arm plank, get into push-up position, putting your hands beneath your shoulders, toes pushing against the floor and neck in neutral position with the body straight. Hold the position for at least twenty seconds or as long as comfortable. The forearm plank it easier and the same, except you put your weight on your forearms that are on the floor with the elbows in line with the shoulders and forearms parallel to your body.

Modify the plank by doing a mountain climber with a twist.

If you’re doing a mountain climber, you start in plank position. Then bring one foot forward, as though you’re climbing, putting it back to start position, then bringing the other foot forward beneath you. The twist in this mountain climber is that you bring your knee up as you would with the regular mountain climber, but touch it to the opposite elbow and back down to plank. Then do the other leg.

Do a left side plank with a leg lift, then a right side plank with a leg lift.

This exercise has a similar form to the plank, but you do it on your side. Start with the left side with your right foot atop the left, and left forearm propping you up so your body is in a straight, diagonal line. Lift the right foot as high as you can go as you remain in plank form with your body straight. Do several and then switch sides.

  • Crunches have always been great for the abs. Start with a traditional crunch by lying on your back, feet flat on the floor, hip-width apart and knees bent. Exhale as you lift your upper body, touching the knees. Inhale as you go back to the starting position.
  • A bridge is another tough tummy tightener. You start in the same position as a crunch, but lift your hips off the floor until you form a straight line from your knees to your neck.
  • A great stand-by is a leg lift. Lay on your back with your body straight with your knees together and hands under your hips. Slowly raise your legs until they are at a 90-degree angle to the body. Hold and lower.
  • An isometric exercise is easy, but powerful. Stand up straight and inhale deeply, then exhale as you pull your stomach in as tight as possible. Hold as long as you can.

For more information, contact us today at BioFit Performance